As discussed in the co-pending application identified above, frameless furniture including chairs, futons, bean bags and the like has been known in the art for many years. In the context of this application, all of these terms are used interchangeably. Furthermore, frameless furniture filled with only beads of polystyrene or with only polyester foam has been known in the art.
While such conventional beanbag furniture is quite popular, the shape-ability, among other things, remains a problem. For example, after a conventional beanbag has been occupied by a person, the expanded polystyrene (EPS) beads within the liner of the beanbag remain substantially compressed, resulting in a depression which remains until the beanbag is reshaped by rolling, shaking, fluffing or the like.
Another drawback of beanbags filled solely with beads is that the beads (aka beads or pellets) can be hard, and, in time, may result in the occupant being uncomfortable.
Another deficiency in such frameless (or soft) furniture is that the beads compress fairly quickly such that the furniture becomes “flat” and needs to be refilled with beads. Likewise, the polystyrene beads do not have any inherent ability to return the chair to its original shape after the occupant departs therefrom.
Some solutions to these problems of frameless furniture are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,725,482 and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,732,391, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. These patents disclose that conventional inexpensive polystyrene beads are replaced by commercially available polyurethane foam pieces. These patents also disclose that certain species of polyurethane foam are both compressible and resilient having sufficient compressibility to conform to the occupant's shape and sufficient resiliency to fill out the chair when unoccupied.
Similarly, the soft furniture which is filled solely with polyurethane foam pieces thereof also has limitations. For example, the foam pieces do not provide the “fluid feel” of polystyrene beads in beanbag furniture because the foam does not have the ability of the beads to move with respect to each other.
The present invention provides another solution to the above-mentioned problems related to frameless furniture.